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The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology
This unique book weaves linguistic, cultural, and historical themes together to form a concise and accessible account of the development of the Slavic languages. Alexander Schenker demonstrates that inquiry into early Slavic culture requires an understanding of history, language, and texts and that an understanding of early Slavic writing is incomplete outside the context of medieval culture.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published June 26, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 25, 2012
Alexander M. Schenker's The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology is a comprehensive historical background to the first Slavic writings. For anyone learning Old Church Slavonic from a primer like Nandiris & Auty's HANDBOOK OF OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC or Schmalstieg's INTRODUCTION TO OLD CHURCH SLAVIC Schenker's book is a vital overview of archaeology, comparative Indo-European linguistics, and manuscript studies to serve as accompaniment.
The Dawn of Slavic opens with the historical setting: a hitherto unknown tribe makes it existence known by sweeping into central Europe. Schenker lists the various theories for the Slavic homeland, along with the possibility that peoples reported earlier by ancient historians may be identified with the Slavs. The Slavic expansion is carefully tracked, as well as the intercultural contact of the Slavs in the Balkans. Schenker's history goes up through the Moravian mission--which also tackles the problem of the exact location of Rastislav's kingdom--and the arrival of Slavs in the northwest, and finally ends with Kyiv Rus. This portion of the book contains a rich bibliography, and has spurred this reader onto countless interesting sources.
The section portion of the book is is a brief (100-page) diachronic grammar of Proto-Slavonic, expanded from the author's prior presentation in Routledge's The Slavonic Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie (1993). While it doesn't compare at all to a real primer, it has some interesting perspectives on several matters, most notably phonology. And the grammar goes all the way back to the beginning: Proto-Indo-European, introducing the reader to concepts like laryngeal theory through a Slavic lense. The final portion of the book deals with Slavic philology in its most limited sense: writing. The two alphabets Glagolitic and Cyrillic, their functioning, and their evolution, along with all the debate over their order of invention is described. Major literary figures like Clement of Ochrid are sketched. The most fascinating part for me, however, was Schenker's description of each of the major manuscripts from the OCS period and their contents. Most OCS primers just give a single selection from any given manuscript, it is nice to know what else is out there.
If you are interested in any topic having to with early Slavs, from comparative Indo-European linguistics to the history of the modern Slavic states, The Dawn of Slavic is highly recommended. Very rarely do I encounter such an entertaining book.
The Dawn of Slavic opens with the historical setting: a hitherto unknown tribe makes it existence known by sweeping into central Europe. Schenker lists the various theories for the Slavic homeland, along with the possibility that peoples reported earlier by ancient historians may be identified with the Slavs. The Slavic expansion is carefully tracked, as well as the intercultural contact of the Slavs in the Balkans. Schenker's history goes up through the Moravian mission--which also tackles the problem of the exact location of Rastislav's kingdom--and the arrival of Slavs in the northwest, and finally ends with Kyiv Rus. This portion of the book contains a rich bibliography, and has spurred this reader onto countless interesting sources.
The section portion of the book is is a brief (100-page) diachronic grammar of Proto-Slavonic, expanded from the author's prior presentation in Routledge's The Slavonic Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie (1993). While it doesn't compare at all to a real primer, it has some interesting perspectives on several matters, most notably phonology. And the grammar goes all the way back to the beginning: Proto-Indo-European, introducing the reader to concepts like laryngeal theory through a Slavic lense. The final portion of the book deals with Slavic philology in its most limited sense: writing. The two alphabets Glagolitic and Cyrillic, their functioning, and their evolution, along with all the debate over their order of invention is described. Major literary figures like Clement of Ochrid are sketched. The most fascinating part for me, however, was Schenker's description of each of the major manuscripts from the OCS period and their contents. Most OCS primers just give a single selection from any given manuscript, it is nice to know what else is out there.
If you are interested in any topic having to with early Slavs, from comparative Indo-European linguistics to the history of the modern Slavic states, The Dawn of Slavic is highly recommended. Very rarely do I encounter such an entertaining book.
September 21, 2020
An excellent reference manual for anyone interested in Slavic philology.
July 1, 2012
I'm not sure I really think this is an introduction to Slavic philology; I'd rather say it's an excellent book of reference for when you want to check something OCS related. Reading it all in one go wasn't very exciting, partly because I am familiar with lots of the material already, and partly because there is just so much detail about for example vocabulary, scribes or monasteries. Brilliant for when you are working with something related to that and want to check it, but for just reading? Forgotten the second I start a with new sentence. I skimmed parts of the book, and a large section in the back is dedicated to OCS text samples with translations, which is excellent. There are very nice IE ending charts, and a thorough section on the missionary work of Constantine and Methodius. It's really the kind of book you should have on your bookshelf if you are interested in Slavic philology. You don't have to be a linguist to enjoy the book either, since Schenker is actually - wait for it - pedagogic! I know. Shocking.
September 14, 2012
Informative and lively, could use a bit more background information for non-linguists.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews